It is always a joy to shop at Russo's in Watertown, MA http://russos.com/. They carry, among lots of other goodies worthy of many more blog entries, the best fresh raviolis I have found! For $6 I was able to purchase 10 of these beauties. We ate them all, 4 each for the adults, 2 for Andrew (and this is why I am gaining weight, eating his leftovers).For the sauce, from the freezer I pulled out 2 small (1/2 cup?) containers of Emeril's (formerly jarred) Vodka Cream Sauce. I popped it into the 1 quart sauce pan and let sit to melt a bit while prepping the salad dressing and salad. I nearly always freeze a leftover pasta sauce or else it goes to waste.
I usually just buy a packet of "Good Seasons" Italian dressing mix but the past couple times have made it with my own stash and it's very satisfactory. Unless you buy that dressing mix on sale, it's $2 for one packet. This is a fraction of the price.The inspiration: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Italian-Dressing-Mix/Detail.aspx.
I scaled it down by 1/3 or so and just use a 1/2 teaspoon measure which is easy to dip into spice containers. A handy fact: 3 teaspoons= 1 tablespoon.
The easier you can make it on yourself, the better.
That recipe calls for a whopping 2Tb of salt, which I do not use. Also, I would never buy dried parsley.
I used a scoop each of garlic powder, onion powder, 4 scoops of Penzey's "Italian Herb Mix", a dash of celery salt and a grind of salt and a bit more of a grind of pepper. All went right into the Good Seasons cruet. It has handy dash marks indicating how much vinegar, water and oil you need. The spice mix takes up room on the bottom or the cruet so I guess the levels a tad higher.
I love this store: http://www.penzeys.com/cgi-bin/penzeys/shophome.html
At first we received their catalog but a couple years later they opened a store nearby in Arlington, MA. What's fun is that their quarterly catalog always has a free coupon for a jar of spices. In this case, it was the Italian herb mix. It contains Turkish oregano, basil, marjoram, thyme and cracked rosemary.
Their prices are a fraction of McCormick/supermarket spices. One thing I find annoying is that their products do not have "best by" dates. I mark the bottles with the date purchased.
The salesperson explained that you can tell if your spices are good by smelling them.
I guess this makes sense. But I like to know if something's been in the spice cabinet for 10 years!
Salad prep: mixed baby greens (there are some in the garden but I didn't feel like washing it all tonight), thin sliced red onion, quartered tomatoes, cucumber, mushrooms, and shredded carrot. In action below is a nifty carrot shredder purchased a while back at Crate & Barrel (no longer available).
Now I heat up the sauce pan and get the ravioli water boiling. The frozen sauce is at first very watery and needs to be stirred often and reduced to a nice spattering-over-the-pot consistency.
The cheese raviolis cut apart, ready to take a dip in the boiling water! You have to guess how long to cook them. 8 minutes seems to be the best time. They are fragile and need to be handled gently to prevent bursting open. I separate them using a knife (oh well, jagged edge). I've tried pulling them apart in the past and almost always that weakens them and there is breakage while boiling. Not this time!Also, I used to drop them in by hand (ouch! splashing hot water!) and learned my lesson to use a slotted spoon, gently lowering them in, one by one. This was also the tool to use for removing them, directly to a dinner plate.
"Mangia, mangia!"
Andrew kept requesting, "More cheese?" Just before dinner was served and no one was paying attention, much like a sneaky cat, he found the opened bar of parmesan on the table and started taking bites from it! I cut his "contaminated" bit pieces off and he snarfed them down, wanting more. During dinner, we had to grate (hefty amounts, I might add) 3 times! I then realized his raviolis needed to be cut down further than 6ths so he could enjoy them more. Oh well. Someday he'll learn to use a knife!
Alex also pointed out we forgot garlic bread! It is a nice accompaniment for a hearty appetite and we keep some slices on hand in the freezer. As it turned out, we ended up sharing 1 salad and putting the other in the fridge for later.
